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yesterday y bought a roland fp50 and i have something strange. When i connect my external speakers, the built in speakers are not desactivated.....the sound of the piano is in the internal and external speakers....

Hellohow do you connect your external speakers ? using RCA or Jack 6.5 cables ?I had same trouble with a casio PX350just plugging a headphone should do the trick (or Jack adaptator on the headphone connector)

Hellohow do you connect your external speakers ? using RCA or Jack 6.5 cables ?I had same trouble with a casio PX350just plugging a headphone should do the trick (or Jack adaptator on the headphone connector)

Or just turning the volume down to zero on the piano. Many times (Usually) the volume of the lineouts is not affected by volume control of the piano.

There was a day, not to long ago that Roland actually spent the extra dollar to include an on/off switch, like on FP-4. I guess the top management isn't making enough money these days. Really, how much extra can it cost? DF's!

Is there any news? I am having the same problem: I want to deactivate the internal speakers when I plug in external ones. This doesn't work so far. Also, when I put a plug into the headphone output, both the internal and the external speakers are muted, so this doesn't help me either.The only option that I see is to connect my external speakers to my headphone output. Are there any other alternatives?

One short other question: When I play e.g. the normal concert grand, all notes (both high and low) come from both speakers basically equally strong. I would have expected that low notes come predominantly from the left speaker while high notes come from the right speaker. When I listen carefully via headphones, I have the impression that this is also the case on the FP-50 but only to a very minor extent. When I listen via the internal speakers, there is basically no such impression. Is there any way to broaden the stereo impression somehow?

Depends how handy you are, but if you opened it up, it wouldn't be that difficult to simply put a switch in-line in one of the wires that is connected directly to the speakers. May be lucky and find a single wire that at some point controls the sound to both speakers and put the switch in that, otherwise it'd be one per side.

No, it's far from ideal, but it would work and it wouldn't be particularly hard to do... if you're any good with a pair of pliers, wirecutters and a screwdriver.

It looks like theuser interface has gotten worse, and I hear the keyboard isn't as good. Has anyone tried the two of them?

Yes. Roland giveth and Roland taketh away. That is my experience. The SN APs are more sophisticated than the older non-SN ones, but the earlier versions are less muddy. The FP-50 does have the basic AP samples hidden away in the "other" bank, but they lack even damper resonance. The speakers were less powerful in the FP-4, but also clearer sounding. The FP-4 also had visual reference for the rotary control, the very useful speaker switch, more direct access to sound categories, a faster (but less precise) action, and a more robust yet lighter chassis. My guess is that Roland found the FP-4 taking away too many sales from the RD range, and chose to redress the balance by making the new FPs less desirable in a "pro" context.

_________________________"you don't need to have been a rabbit in order to become a veterinarian"

Depends how handy you are, but if you opened it up, it wouldn't be that difficult to simply put a switch in-line in one of the wires that is connected directly to the speakers.

It seems that this would be the only option, however I bought the piano about one week ago and I don't want to void the warranty.

Concerning the problem with the one or two wires for the speaker: There are so-called dual pole switches, which are basically switching two independent circuits via one button, so one of these guys would do the job even if there isn't one single wire that could switch both speakers. I am a bit experienced with soldering. If I would do it, I would probably also try to install a potentiometer to make the LEDs on the front panel dimmable, even though that's probably not so easily possible. However the main problem is the warranty...

After using the FP-4 for gigging many years, I found that the internal speakers were actually quite useful for giving me a way to monitor myself while the main sound was coming out of my piano amp. However, perhaps you could turn the main volume in the keyboard down and turn the external speakers up. I'd hate to open up the keyboard and void the warrantee.

I hear you. I, for example, loved my P120 for the good onboard speakers and particularly the on/off-switch. After the p120, things have gotten worse...no switch and baaad speakers on the P140, better but not great speakers and still no switch on the P155. WTF are they thinking? Onboard speakers are a great addition and useful most of the time, one needs to mute them from time to time though. Would it cost really that much to implement this function in all these pianos with internal speakers?

Not only a on/off switch is necessary, but also a simple routing would be helpful. A lot of keyboards have inputs and these go directly to the speakers and to the output of the keyboard at the same time. It would be great to be able to use the internal speakers as a monitor for smaller gigs, but this makes it impossible because it causes a loop with the input signal.

Also, this is a little kludgey, but might there be a way to simply cover the speakers if you don't want to hear them?

Even though I have to say that this is probably not the most advanced and polished solution to the problem, it's probably good enough - and I haven't thought about it myself :-)Turning the external speaker fully up and the output of the keyboard (and by this also the internal speakers) only as up as necessary results in both internal and external speakers being roughly equally strong. If I now cover the internal ones, I should mostly hear the external speakers. That should be good enough.Furthermore, now I got used to the sound of the interal speakers some more and have found an EQ setting which makes the speaker a bit more tolerable, so all in all I guess I'm quite happy now. Of course, a simple switch would still have been the solution #1. Thanks for your input!

Also, when I put a plug into the headphone output, both the internal and the external speakers are muted, so this doesn't help me either.The only option that I see is to connect my external speakers to my headphone output.

Hi all,

don't know why this wasn't working until now, but now if I put a plug/adaptor into the headphone output, only the internal speakers are muted but the output for external speakers is still active.So, in order to mute my internal speakers, I just put an adaptor into the headphone output.

don't know why this wasn't working until now, but now if I put a plug/adaptor into the headphone output, only the internal speakers are muted but the output for external speakers is still active.So, in order to mute my internal speakers, I just put an adaptor into the headphone output.

The most common use for the headphone jack is for private playing (to use the board without bothering other people), so it doesn't make sense to not be able to disable the internal speakers. It's been do-able in any board I've seen that had internal speakers... there was either a switch to turn off the speakers, or they automatically turned off when you plugged something into the headphone jack.

Personally, that feature has gotten in my way! I like to have the speakers running while I'm playing at a gig, because I feel the vibrations in my fingers and it makes the piano playing experience feel more authentic. I have occasionally gigged with a board where I had to use the headphone out to get to my amp, and was annoyed that that meant shutting off the internal speakers!

FP80 has a speakers switch, which implies that it has a useful function, so it makes no sense that FP50 doesn't. -1 respect for Roland on this one.

A separate switch is best. Cheaper models often have the switch "built in" to the headphone jack... the speakers switch off when you insert a plug into the jack. That probably suits the majority of players, but you lose some flexibility.

What they should have is a one switch for the speakers, and another (conveniently placed) switch for the headphones. If you have your DP at home it's very preferable to leave the headphones plugged in the whole time, and flick a switch if you want to use them. It's less effort, less physical wear and risk of damage to components, and keeps the lead in a tidy place.

Anotherscott, I had the same issue with my FP-4 - I wanted to be able to use sound isolating earphones while playing with a big band (to mute the brass a little so I could hear myself). If you were to open up the keyboard to where the headphone jack is, you'll see a wire going from the jack that is electrically isolated (turned off) when plugging in the headphone. I simply connected a jumper across that "switch" so the headphone would not disconnect the speakers when plugged in. In my case, there are two headphone jacks, so I altered only one of them to give me a choice of whether speakers will be turned off or not, depending on which jack I plug the headphone into.

Anotherscott, I had the same issue with my FP-4 - I wanted to be able to use sound isolating earphones while playing with a big band (to mute the brass a little so I could hear myself). If you were to open up the keyboard to where the headphone jack is, you'll see a wire going from the jack that is electrically isolated (turned off) when plugging in the headphone. I simply connected a jumper across that "switch" so the headphone would not disconnect the speakers when plugged in. In my case, there are two headphone jacks, so I altered only one of them to give me a choice of whether speakers will be turned off or not, depending on which jack I plug the headphone into.

I'd like to install such a mod into my old Casio PX-500L, so that one of its headphone jacks wouldn't cut off the speakers, but that's beyond my skill level.

As for the FP-4, though, it has a speaker switch on the back. I guess putting something into the headphone jack overrides it? Since it also has line out jacks, I guess the need for anyone to have speakers on while something is plugged into the phones jack is reduced.

Yes, to be clear, while I used my headphones we wanted to leave the speakers on for the nearby band members to hear, while the line out was plugged into the band's PA out in front of the band. So, by jumpering the headphone jack, we could use headphones AND hear the FP-4's speakers at the same time.

Also, this is a little kludgey, but might there be a way to simply cover the speakers if you don't want to hear them?

Sorry, I only noticed now your question.

Let's say I'm playing a gig with a band on a 'smaller' stage. I would like to hear a bit of the lead vocals in my monitor for example. Since the stage is small, I would like to use the built in speakers on my piano as a small monitor. So I get a cable from the engineer to hook up into my piano with a mix from the desk. At this point everything is fine. I hear the piano and the vocals coming straight out of the piano. But the engineer at the desk starts freaking out because all of a sudden from the piano output he gets the piano together with the vocals. Anything that is sent to the input of the piano is outputted from the piano. There is no way to cut the signal route.

Cmin - thanks. That makes sense. I think I have had a similar loop as follows:

My flute player sets up his mic within range of my front-firing keyboard speakers and asks for a little reverb. The piano sound comes out of the keyboard speakers and feeds into the mic, which in turn feeds my PA, which I am also feeding directly from the keyboard. Now, my keyboard has extra unwanted reverb because of the flute's mic channel, plus possibly some distortion from the multiple out of phase feeds from the keyboard.